Secondary socialization takes place later in childhood and into maturity. Main agents (agencies) of socialization include schools, peer groups, organizations, the media and the workplace.

All agents involved in socialization of individuals are differentiated as informal and formal ones. The family and peers are typical informal agents of socialization and the school and mass media represent formal agents. For instance, peers become especially influential in schools. They provide opportunities to practice social roles, they are an important source of information, and they greatly influence values and attitudes in mate selection, sex relations, and forms of expression in music, sports and the like. It should be noted that some entities can serve as the agents of both primary and secondary socialization, for instance, peers of childhood and teenager period (primary) and peers at work (secondary).

Difference between primary and secondary forms also lies in the character of relations among humans. Primary socialization is the area of interpersonal relations that's why most intensively it takes place in the first half of human life, although fading and going out slowly, it remains in the second half as well. Secondary socialization is the area of social relations and it occurs in the second half of human life whereby a person is faced with secondary agencies which have a great impact on developing personality.

A principle asserting that development of personality is a lifelong ascending process based on consolidating of the interiorized before, is indisputable. But personal qualities moulded before aren't stable or unshakable for ever. When a person learns new roles, values or habits instead of those badly learnt before or obsolete, re-socialization occurs. It embraces a lot of activities - from lessons arranged to change the child's reading skills to vocational retraining of workers.

Development of any person is determined by a number of factors:

family - in any civilization, it is the main area of primary socialization of personality as it is characterized by a set of social norms, sanctions and patterns of behaviour which regulate interactions and relations among spouses, parents and children, other relatives. As a rule, a child learns those patterns of behaviour typical for its parents;

relations of equality - including into “groups of equal”(friends, peers of same age) also has a great impact on the process of personal development. Interrelations among peers are more democratic as compared to those among parents and children. In such groups, individuals enter into various contacts with each other creating informal groups; they often keep these relations all their life;

education - its importance is determined by the fact that the society ensures development of education and upbringing of the growing generations in accordance with the values, ideals, standards of behaviour typical for a given society. Education is a process and result of learning systematic knowledge, skills, and at the same time a necessary condition of preparing a person for labour activities;

mass media (radio, press, TV, movie) are a most powerful factor of influence on human consciousness and behaviour that means that they influence on the socialization process;

labour - the working process is an organizational framework within which an individual turns to a member of the labour collective. While turning to a worker, he learns not only professional roles but also gets to know what is to be an executive and subordinate, leader or outsider etc.;

culture is a specific kind of activity aimed at creating spiritual and material wealth, so its result comes to be a system of ideals, values, norms and patterns of behaviour embodied in the social development of a person and his spiritual world;

incomes play an important symbolic role. High incomes mean well-being, high professional qualification and good business aptitudes of personality;

organizations such as youth associations, church, sport clubs also participate in the development of a person.

Thus, the development of a person is determined by a number of socio-economic factors, social factors being dominant.

At the same time the development of a person can't avoid crises. An American psychologist and psychiatrist Erik H. Erikson (1902-1994), who is also known for coining the phrase “identity crisis”, developed his theory on the social development of human beings with respect to the psychological analysis of S. Freud. E. Erikson described eight developmental stages of the Ego through which a human should pass from infancy to late adulthood. In each stage a person confronts new challenges which are hopefully mastered. Each stage builds on a successful completion of earlier stages. The challenges of stages which are not successfully completed may be expected to reappear as problems in the future. It should be noted that E. Erikson was the first to identify eight stages of development, later his students added two more to further refine adolescence and adulthood.

Thus, to E. Erikson, at each stage a human encounters the following crises:

infancy (birth-18 months): trust versus mistrust;

younger years (18 months-3 years): autonomy versus shame and doubt;

early childhood (3-6 years): initiative versus guilt;

middle childhood (6-12 years): industry versus inferiority;

early adolescence (12-18 years): group identity versus alienation;

later adolescence (18-22 years): Ego-identity versus identity confusion;

early adulthood (22-34 years): intimacy versus isolation;

middle adulthood (34-60 years): generativity versus stagnation;

later adulthood (60-75 years): Ego-integrity versus despair;

old age (75 years-death): immortality versus extinction.

According to E. Erikson, the Ego, around which the individual integrates a sense of identity, develops in the process of socialization. He, too, thinks the society plays an important role in moulding personality. He emphasized that socialization is a lifelong process which goes through cycles from infancy to adolescence to various states of young, middle, and elderly adulthood.

BASIC CONCEPTS

Hedonistic materialist - a person who is oriented to satisfy his needs as consumer.

Homo consumer - a modern consumer, or personality moulded by mass society (by R. Dahrendorf).

Homo faber - a “working man”in the traditional society, or personality allotted with an important public function (by R. Dahrendorf).

Homo soveticus - a person depending on the state (by R. Dahrendorf).

Homo universalis - a person with the aptitude to perform various activities (by R. Dahrendorf).

Human being - a particular representative of mankind.

Idealist - a person who is critical towards traditional norms and firmly determined to self-development.

Individual - a particular representative of mankind.

Individuality - a set of qualities or characteristics distinguishing one person from another at the biological, psychological, social and other levels.

Introvert - a person who tends to focus on his inner world of ideas and experiences.

Man - a most common, generic concept for a representative of mankind.

One-dimensional man - a person who perceives informational stereotypes and moulds simplified schemes of seeing phenomena as black-and-white (by H. Marcuse).

Person - a particular representative of mankind.

Personality - a concept introduced to focus on the individual's social nature.

Primary socialization - a socialization process which occurs in infancy and childhood and is the most intense period of cultural learning.

Psychological analysis - a psychological perspective of Sigmund Freud who considered a person as hedonist, or striving for getting satisfaction, with the society as a system of constraints and taboos.

Psychological structure (of personality) - a structure which includes personality's subjective qualities such as various emotions, feelings, memory, abilities etc.

Realist - a person who can combine his strive for self-realization with a developed sense of duty.

Re-socialization - a socialization process which occurs when a person learns new roles, values or habits instead of those badly learnt before or obsolete.

Role theory - a theory positing that human behaviour is guided by expectations held by the individual and other people. The expectations correspond to different roles individuals perform or enact in their daily lives.

Secondary socialization - a socialization process which takes place later in childhood and into maturity.

Social structure (of personality) - a set of personality's subjective and objective social qualities which are created and function in the process of his activity.

Socialization - a lifelong process by which, through contact with others, one becomes a self-aware, knowledgeable human being, skilled in the ways of a given culture and environment. Socialization suggests interiorizing of social roles and cultural norms.

Traditionalist - a person who is followed by values of duty, discipline, law; their level of self-realization, creativity is low.

Unconscious socialization - a socialization process which occurs as a result of spontaneous interaction with no purposeful or deliberate attempt on the part of anyone involved to train, educate or the like.

Additional literature